Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“There was no reason to. He’s quite a bit older than me and I don’t see him very often. He wouldn’t have come here unless it was urgent.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Our mother’s sick again. I must go and see her for a couple of days.”

Stephen did know about Mary’s mother. One evening soon after they first met Mary had told Stephen all about her. She was a Frenchwoman who had come to England in the 1930s to marry Mary’s father, an Englishman who hadn’t survived the war, dying like so many others on the shores of Normandy in 1944. And Mary had grown up in Bournemouth of all places-Mary’s mother had been told by her doctors that the sea air would be good for her delicate health. They spoke French at home after Mary’s father died, and Mary’s slightly accented English stood her in good stead when she started out acting in repertory theatres along the south coast after she left school. It gave her a touch of glamour and won her roles that she might not have got otherwise.

Stephen was impressed by Mary’s success at earning her own living, but he could never quite come to terms with her acting. Her transformation on stage into another person excited and frightened him all at the same time. In the week after they first met he went to see her perform almost every night, but afterward he preferred to wait for her at the stage door. It was easier that way.

The truth was that Stephen was jealous of this other world that Mary inhabited. It increased her attractiveness but also made him uneasy. And he had the same feeling when he thought about her brother, although in fact he only saw Paul once more before the end. It was one evening about a month later, and Stephen was returning from a lecture. It started raining suddenly, and he stepped into a coffee shop for shelter, and there they were, Mary and her brother, sitting at the back, deep in conversation. He thought of going up to them but something held him back, and, with a start, he realised that he was feeling something very close to jealousy, which was of course absurd. Conquering his hesitation, he called out Mary’s name and waved to get her attention. She seemed flustered when she caught sight of him and spoke quickly to her brother before she smiled, beckoning him over. And, by the time he got to the table, Paul had got up to go. He nodded to Stephen without speaking, and there was the same blank expression in his eyes that Stephen had noticed at the time of their first encounter. And then he was gone.

“Your brother doesn’t seem to like me much,” said Stephen, sitting down in the chair that Paul had just vacated.

“It’s not that,” said Mary. “He was in a hurry.”

“Obviously.”

“All right,” she said, smiling. “You’re right. He was rude. And I’m sorry he was. It’s because he’s shy. He’s not academic, literary, like you. He doesn’t feel at home here.”

“So where does he feel at home?”

“London,” said Mary briefly.

“Then why does he come here?”

“To see me. He is my brother, you know. It’s your choice that you hardly ever see yours.”

And they began talking about Silas and Stephen’s father and all the reasons why Stephen had left his past behind, until it was time to go home and Stephen didn’t even remember that Mary had changed the subject.

Summer had almost arrived and the play’s run had long since finished, but Mary had stayed on in Oxford, and Stephen had no idea how she was supporting herself. They’d never talked about money, until she told him one afternoon that her mother’s health had become much worse to the point that she urgently needed an operation that could only be performed in Switzerland. It was an unusual illness that had something to do with her heart, although Stephen never understood the details. Just that it would cost a lot of money. Mary said she’d have to go away and get a part in Manchester or London unless she could raise what she needed here in Oxford. It was his fear of losing Mary just as much as pressure from Silas that made Stephen write to his father, asking to come home, and the old man’s last act before he died was to refuse to give his son the money he needed for Mary, even though he had more than enough money to fund a hundred operations. If Stephen had won the game of chess, he could have had the money, but he had lost, and so he’d got nothing.

Stephen remembered like it was yesterday the mean, tight-lipped way in which his father had refused him. Enraged, he’d practically run out into the courtyard, gasping for air, because God knows what he would’ve done if he’d stayed in there with the old bastard. Instead, as it turned out, he’d left his father behind for the last time, because, in the few minutes that it took him to walk to the gate and back, someone calmly went into the study and shot John Cade in the head-put an end to him once and for all and left Stephen to pay for something he’d never done. Who had it been? Who had it been?

Stephen banged his head against his hands in frustration, but there was no relief from the incessant pounding of the thoughts inside his brain. His life hung on the answer to a question, and he was no nearer to solving it than he had been on the night of his arrest.

Ritter had woken up as he always did at half past five. He didn’t need an alarm clock. His sleeping and eating were set to an internal timer that ticked away somewhere deep inside his big frame, measuring out the days of his life.

He got out of bed almost immediately, crossed to the window, and pulled back the curtains, allowing the early morning light to fill the room. He stretched for a moment and then walked into the bathroom. Stripping himself naked, he looked at his big bulk in the mirror, and an expression of self-satisfaction settled over his features. He washed noisily and shaved before settling to the detailed task of clipping back the tiny rogue hairs that had grown out of his military moustache during the night. Finally content, and clothed only in a towel, Ritter went back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed nearest to his sleeping wife.

His. Mine. The possessive pronoun was always uppermost in Ritter’s mind when he thought of Jeanne. She was pretty and foreign and desirable, and she belonged to him and nobody else. When he used violence against her, he took care never to leave any mark on her face or her hands or her calves. She was living proof that Reginald Ritter counted for something in the world. He owned her, and she was worth owning. Ritter wasn’t blind. He’d seen men looking at his wife, knowing they couldn’t have her because she belonged to him. As always the thought acted on Ritter’s psyche like an aphrodisiac. He laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder and turned her over to face him. The force of the movement woke her, and he was in time to see the fear in her eyes before the usual unreadable mask descended over her face.

Roughly, Ritter used his right hand to pull open his wife’s nightdress while his left hand retained its grip on her shoulder.

“No, Reg. No. Not today.”

Ritter loved his wife’s voice. He loved the Frenchness in it. The way she rolled the R when she called him by his name. It inflamed him, and he climbed onto the bed and forced himself into her, even though he had previously intended to do nothing of the kind. Today was an important day. He and Jeanne were going to London to give evidence. Ritter relished the thought of it: all the lawyers and the newspapermen listening to him and Stevie in the dock waiting for the noose to be fitted round his neck.

Beneath him his wife lapsed into French. “Non, non.” The words came out in small cries, and Ritter ignored them just like he always did. Instead he gathered her white breasts in his big hands and thrust himself deep inside her one last time, before he subsided down onto her body, half crushing her with his weight.